What happens to traceability when your raw materials are stuck at a border you didn’t expect to close? Earlier this year, political instability in the Sahel region led to abrupt land border closures between multiple countries. These events disrupted food imports across West Africa and Europe particularly for staple ingredients like cereals, fruits, and packaged…
Tag Archives: IFS Integrity
Ice is often considered an invisible ingredient but if not monitored, it can become a hidden risk in your food safety system. In Q3 2025, U.S. FDA and Canadian CFIA inspections uncovered Listeria monocytogenes in ice machines used in ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and salad processing plants. These machines were in direct contact with food…
Certima Blog
If your CAP report is perfect, why are auditors still flagging the same issues next year?
In recent audits across Europe, certification bodies have noted a trend that’s too common to ignore: the same non-conformities reappearing year after year, even when they’re marked as “closed.” What’s causing these findings to persist? In many cases, it’s not poor documentation it’s weak implementation. Follow-through breaks down after the audit ends, and the cycle…
And you’ll know there’s a problem when the QA team is alone in the room. During recent audits, one theme keeps emerging: when food safety responsibilities aren’t shared across departments, findings multiply and stay unresolved. When senior leaders and operations staff treat food safety as a siloed task, audit readiness suffers. So does actual performance….
Certima Blog
Is a certificate enough to trust what’s in your bottle? Recent fraud cases suggest otherwise.
Olive oil fraud isn’t new, but in 2025, it became harder to detect. Several enforcement actions in Spain, Italy, and Germany revealed that some premium-labeled olive oils were diluted with lower-grade oils and falsely claimed protected origin status. What’s worse: forged documentation was used to pass regulatory checks. This case isn’t about just one product,…
The IFS Integrity Program includes several measures to ensure the highest quality and reliability of the IFS certification system. One of these measures is the Integrity On-site Check, which is typically conducted unannounced. These checks can be initiated based on a complaint or scheduled by IFS Quality Assurance using a risk-based approach. Key Points of…